No End in Sight


No End in Sight is a 2007 documentary film about the American occupation of Iraq. The film marks the directorial debut of Academy Award-winning documentary film producer Charles H. Ferguson. The film premiered January 22, 2007 at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. The film opened in limited release in the United States on July 27, 2007, playing in two theaters., the film had grossed $1.4 million, and had been released on DVD.

Interviews

To a large extent the film consists of interviews with the people who were involved in the initial Iraqi occupation authority and the ORHA. Thirty-five people are interviewed who have since become disillusioned by what they experienced at the time. In particular, many of those interviewed claim that the inexperience of the core members of the Bush administration — and their refusal to seek, acknowledge or accept input from more experienced outsiders — was at the root of the disastrous occupation effort. Others include former soldiers stationed in Iraq, as well as authors and journalists critical of the war planning.
Those interviewed are:
No End in Sight is a documentary film that focuses on the two-year period following the American invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The film asserts that serious mistakes made by the administration of President George W. Bush during that time were the cause of ensuing problems in Iraq, such as the rise of the insurgency, a lack of security and basic services for many Iraqis, sectarian violence and, at one point, the risk of complete civil war.
The documentary notes the lack of forward planning for the post invasion governance of Iraq. It critiques Rumsfeld for not providing enough troops to maintain order, which led to the absence of martial law after the country was conquered. The ORHA had identified at least twenty crucial government buildings and cultural sites in Bagdad, but none of the locations were protected; only the oil ministry was guarded. With no police force or national army to maintain order, ministries and buildings were looted for their desks, tables, chairs, phones, and computers. Large machines and rebars from buildings were also looted. Among those pillaged were Iraqi museums, containing priceless artifacts from some of the earliest human civilizations, which No End in Sight suggested had sent chilling signals to the average Iraqi that the American forces did not intend to maintain law and order. Eventually, the widespread looting turned into an organized destruction of Baghdad. The destruction of libraries and records, in combination with the "De-Ba'athification", had ruined the bureaucracy that existed prior to the U.S. invasion. ORHA staff reported that they had to start from scratch to rebuild the government infrastructure. Rumsfeld initially dismissed the widespread looting as no worse than rioting in a major American city and archival footage of General Eric Shinseki stating his belief of the required troop numbers reveals the awareness of the lack of troops.
According to No End in Sight, there were also three especially grave mistakes made by L. Paul Bremer, the head of the CPA:
The film cites these three mistakes as the primary causes of the rapid deterioration of occupied Iraq into chaos, as the collapse of the government bureaucracy and army resulted in a lack of authority and order. It was the Islamic fundamentalists that moved to fill this void, so their ranks swelled with many disillusioned Iraqi people.

Reception

The film holds a Metacritic score of 89 out of 100, based on 27 reviews.
A. O. Scott of The New York Times called it "exacting, enraging" and said " presents familiar material with impressive concision and impact, offering a clear, temperate and devastating account of high-level arrogance and incompetence." Scott said "most of the movie deals with a period of a few months in the spring and summer of 2003, when a series of decisions were made that did much to determine the terrible course of subsequent events" and wrote "the knowledge and expertise of military, diplomatic and technical professionals was overridden by the ideological certainty of political loyalists." Scott also remarked, "It might be argued that since Mr. Bremer, Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Wolfowitz declined to appear in the film, Mr. Ferguson was able to present only one side of the story. But the accumulated professional standing of the people he did interview, and their calm, detailed insistence on the facts, makes such an objection implausible." Scott concluded, "It’s a sober, revelatory and absolutely vital film."
Rob Nelson of the Village Voice said "Masterfully edited and cumulatively walloping, Charles Ferguson's No End in Sight turns the well-known details of our monstrously bungled Iraq war into an enraging, apocalyptic litany of fuck-ups." Nelson said the film "is certainly a film about failure, perhaps the ultimate film about failure. Or maybe a film about the ultimate failure?", also writing that the film "is less a work of investigation than history." Rob Nelson wrote, "Focusing on the war itself, Ferguson is chiefly interested in compiling a filmed dossier of incompetence—not so much to argue that the war could have been won and won early, but to suggest that the magnitude of arrogant irresponsibility will carry aftershocks as far into the future as the mind can imagine." Nelson also said, "Ferguson's approach is at once relentless and, with the help of Campbell Scott's flat narration, chillingly calm and composed." Nelson wrote, "The evidence speaks for itself, and No End in Sight—addressed to those who'll be swayed against the war by ineptitude more than immorality—is the rare American documentary that doesn't appear to preach to the converted, or at least not only to the converted", also saying "For those of us who've opposed the war for years, the movie is at once intensely frightening and, it must be admitted, disturbingly reassuring." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 4 stars and said "This is not a documentary filled with anti-war activists or sitting ducks for Michael Moore. Most of the people in the film were important to the Bush administration." Ebert concluded, "I am distinctly not comparing anyone to Hitler, but I cannot help being reminded of the stories of him in his Berlin bunker, moving nonexistent troops on a map, and issuing orders to dead generals."
At the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, No End in Sight won the Special Jury Prize for Documentaries.
On January 22, 2008, No End in Sight was named by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as one of 5 films nominated for a prize in the "Best Documentary Feature" category. Ferguson also received a nomination for the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Documentary Screenplay.
Time magazine's Richard Corliss named the film one of the Top 10 Movies of 2007, ranking it at #7. Corliss praised the film, saying it "stands out for its comprehensive take on how we got there, why we can't get out", and opined that everyone should see it, calling it "the perfect stocking-stuffer for holiday enlightenment."
No End in Sight received the following awards in the 2007 film season:
The film appeared on many critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2007.
A book version of No End in Sight is available from the publisher PublicAffairs.